StrangeBanana is a program that automatically creates graphic designs for webpages. Each graphic design created by StrangeBanana is a randomly created unique design. You can use any one of the graphic designs created by StrangeBanana for your own website if you want to.
Just go to StrangeBanana's Generator page . What you see there is a webpage generated by StrangeBanana. You can refresh the page as many times as you want, and each time you will see a new graphic design.
StrangeBanana randomly chooses fonts, colors, and other layout elements, and combines them. However, complete randomness very rarely creates a nice and usable design. Therefore, the program follows some algorithms which should make the design better. For example, it does not just select a bunch of random colors - instead it selects one random color, and then creates several other colors that maches this one.
Since the designs are created randomly, most of them are mediocre, and some are really ugly (despite that the program contains algorithms which tries to avoid this). The fascinating thing about the program is that, every once in a while it creates a really great design. So when you get an ugly design, just hit Reload - the great design might be just a click away.
Absolutely - that is the point of it!
You can use the graphic design from StrangeBanana as it is, or you can modify it. In most cases, you will probably prefer to modify it a little bit.
I would like it if you link to this site (http://www.strangebanana.com) and mention that your design was created by StrangeBanana, but you don't have to.
You need to know some HTML and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) to implement on your own website the graphic design created by StrangeBanana. If you've worked with HTML and CSS you will probably be able to figure out what to do just by looking at the sourcecode (both HTML and CSS) on the generator page. Basically, you have to do two things:
For more details, go to the detailed explanation of how to use the graphic design for your own website .
The lay-out created by StrangeBanana is completely fluid - this means it automatically adjusts to the user's screen and browser window no matter how big or small it is.
The actual webpage consists of HTML code with an internal Cascading Style Sheet (CSS). Behind the scenes, StrangeBanana is made with ASP.NET and C#. The HTML is exactly the same on every StrangeBanana page - it never changes. All the graphical details and the layout is in the stylesheet which changes on every page.
No.
No of course not. Good graphic designers can create designs which are much better than what StrangeBanana can do. I created StrangeBanana just for fun, and for learning some new technologies. However, if you are not a graphic designer and don't have a talent for design, StrangeBanana can probably create a design better than what you can do yourself. At least it can do it quicker!
I did. My name is Torben Junker Kjær. I work as a web developer in Copenhagen, Denmark. I created StrangeBanana in 2003 because I wanted to learn C# and ASP.NET - and improve my knowledge of CSS. I am a poor graphic designer myself, so I wanted to create a program to help me. In the process I learned something about color theory and other graphic design topics. The interesting thing is that the program I created, actually creates graphic designs that are much better than what I have ever done by hand.
If you happen to read Danish, I have a personal website in Danish.
